Kevin Jachimowicz

“Brooklyn Salon”, an exhibit of artwork, is on display at CCSU starting March 6, running until April 6, and features the artwork of a host of famed American artists.

Every semester, Central Connecticut State University Art Galleries hold at the least, three major shows. This exhibit displays artwork selected from recent exhibitions that have been shown in Brooklyn, New York. The show contains artwork from a host of skilled and renowned American artists: Michael Ballou, James Esber, Tony Fitzpatrick, and Jim Torok.

Ballou has been living in Brooklyn since 1983. During the 1990s, he was one of the guiding spirits of Four Walls, hosted in his garage studio, which was something of a combination of clubhouse and laboratory for the exchange of art and ideas. His work ranges from sculptures to mixed media, to film.

Fellow New York artist, Jim Torok, has a portfolio with a feel of much the opposite, with more of a self-critical sense to it. Torok is a cartoonist of current events and painter of miniature portraits using oil paint on panels. Torok typically utilizes tiny portraits, and is also a hilarious storyboard narrator; typically covering the topic of his life as an artist.

Tony Fitzpatrick owns an even more eccentric style. Fitzpatrick’s piece “Midnight City #3” has a feel reminiscent to that of James Esber’s style, colorful, bright and eye-catching, although the focus of the imagery is crystal clear — something Esber’s work does not always necessarily just hand to its viewers.

One of the most impressive pieces, and a definite eye-catcher, was the very recent piece by James Esber, which was just completed in 2013.  “Untitled (Boy with Five Legs)” is the name of the warped, distorted, colorful piece.  In late December of 2010, The New York Times praised Esber for his series of portraits of Osama Bin Laden, reminiscent to that of the “Untitled (Boy with Five Legs)” piece, as far as the distortion aspect goes, at the very least. Esber is also known for another one of his more distorted pieces, this one depicting President Lincoln.

For the process of his creations, Esber paints with Plasticine, a pigmented modeling material that adheres to the wall in low relief and never dries completely. His technique confuses painting and sculpture. Known for tackling taboo social issues in his artwork, Esber gathers images from modern and popular American sources, plies at them and distorts them through his artwork — creating an alternative train of thought for the viewer. Esber seems to have developed a theme of addressing notions of distortion and perception, through mining some of the more over-saturated icons of the media and American pop culture.

Skillfully balancing the pieces with a mixture of both illusionism and objectiveness, Esber’s artworks are significant memorials to the individuals they portray as well as reminders that these pictures are first and foremost objective; the significance in which they are recognized, portrayed and interpreted is completely subject to change viewer to viewer, in regards to the context and light they are perceived in.

Esber’s artwork covers those who may have accidentally stumbled into the media spotlight, depicting and portraying them in a warped and distorted fashion amongst heavily textured surfaces to create depth in the piece — created using clashing colors with varying widths of thickness. Some of Esber’s newer works are created with the intention of looking drastically different in different volumes of lighting; leaving the possibility for the piece to change throughout a single day.

The Brooklyn Salon Art Gallery can be seen in the CCSU Art Gallery, Maloney Hall, and admission will be free up until April 6th, every weekday.